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Microsoft just made another huge move to cement its position as an AI leader.
The company announced that customers can now access OpenAI’s most advanced AI models and tools through its Azure OpenAI Service.
The service gives companies the ability to access and build on top of cutting-edge solutions like GPT 3.5 (the model that powers ChatGPT), Codex (an AI model that generates code), and image-generation model DALL-E 2.
Microsoft also said you will be able to access ChatGPT through this service “soon.”
This opens up a huge commercial opportunity for Microsoft—and one for Azure customers, who can now incorporate these powerful AI models into their businesses and build on top of them.
Notably, Microsoft has also implemented guardrails to regulate how Azure OpenAI Service is used. Developers are currently required to apply for access and have to describe their intended use cases and applications before they can get access.
What moves do you need to be making in response?
I spoke with Marketing AI Institute founder/CEO Paul Roetzer on Episode 30 of the Marketing AI Show to find out.
Pay attention to the next round of Big Tech earnings calls
The first question to ask is: How will other Big Tech companies respond?
It’s a good bet to assume AI will be infused into all the products you use from companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple. And, after Microsoft’s AI moves, you can bet investors and analysts will grill these companies on their AI roadmaps.
To get a preview, don’t miss their upcoming earnings calls. Check the investor relations pages of Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Apple for dates and times of calls.
Find who in your company can help figure out AI
Companies like Microsoft will bake advanced AI into the products you use every day. The teams that figure out how to leverage AI will capture unprecedented performance and productivity gains.
But to do that, you need to find the people in your company who can help you figure out AI.
“I’d be looking around my organization saying ‘Who needs to be on the committee to figure this out?’,” says Roetzer.
Your goal should be to build a roadmap to become an AI-emergent company. An AI emergent company infuses AI into marketing, sales, service, operations, product, HR, and finance over time.
If you use Azure, your first call is to whoever owns that relationship. Ask them what you need to be doing. If you don’t, look first to your core cloud provider (AWS, etc.).
If you can’t find help internally, train for it or hire an outside party
It’s possible you don’t have anyone in-house who can help you figure out your opportunity with AI. It may be necessary to hire an outside consultant or advisor. But good luck finding that person. This is still a rare and valuable skill set.
“The business-savvy AI people aren’t growing on trees right now,” says Roetzer.
Your quicker and better path may be to train staff internally to recognize opportunities to infuse AI into their own work. That way, you have people who both understand AI and understand how to apply it to content marketing, advertising, social, or whatever their domain expertise is.
This will get you ahead of the curve since you’re going to have to hire this talent anyway.
“By the end of 2023, you’re not hiring someone unless they’re AI savvy,” says Roetzer.
How to develop an internal AI training program fast
One way to figure this out fast is by having your team take our Piloting AI for Marketers course series, a series of 17 on-demand courses designed as a step-by-step learning journey for marketers and business leaders to increase productivity and performance with artificial intelligence.
The course series contains 7+ hours of learning, dozens of AI use cases and vendors, a collection of templates, course quizzes, a final exam, and a Professional Certificate upon completion.
After taking Piloting AI for Marketers, you’ll:
- Understand how to advance your career and transform your business with AI.
- Have 100+ use cases for AI in marketing—and learn how to identify and prioritize your own use cases.
- Discover 70+ AI vendors across different marketing categories that you can begin piloting today.
